Samsung announces 1.5GHz Exynos 4212 dual-core mobile chip

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Samsung is looking to set the pace in terms of performance on its mobile handsets with the announcement of a new dual-core processor based on the ARM Cortex A9.

The latest Exynos chip is called the 4212, and will be manufactured using a 32nm process, meaning it’s faster while drawing less power. Samsung is actually boasting a 30% gain in efficiency for this processor, which runs in a dual-core configuration at 1.5GHz. 3D performance also gets a major boost and is set to be 50% better than the existing 4210 chip that relied on ARM’s Mali-400 GPU. It’s not yet known what GPU the 4212 takes advantage of.

If you need some comparison for how fast this chip could potentially be, look no further than the Galaxy S2. That uses Samsun’g previous Exynos 4210 processor which runs at 1.2GHz. If you replaced it with the 4212 chip you’d not only get a big performance gain and power saving, but it too could potentially be overclocked (as could the previous chip) while retaining the same battery life as the existing S2.

We won’t have to wait long to see the Exynos 4212 being used in smartphones and tablet devices. Samsung will have samples ready before the end of the year, so we could see devices on sale using it by the middle of next year.

Samsung promised earlier this year that at some point in 2012 it would have a 2GHz mobile chip. With this 1.5GHz Exynos processor appearing this year, the company looks right on track to deliver on that promise. We may even see them surpass it before 2012 is over.